jayste
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Salida Colorado, we're on our way!!!
- Thread starter EddieWalker
- Start date
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Sigarms
Super Member
Skip Arches (you've seen one, you've seen em all
)By chance, if you're in that area, hit Dead Horse Point State Park. From there, hit the Murphy trail, hiking the down into the Grand Canyon has nothing on it IMO.
Potash road from Moab is one heck of a drive. You'd be surprised how hard your grip becomes on the steering wheel in some places.
South of Moab, Needles overlook. Better view than the Grand Canyon as well (IMO) with no people.
Pic is from Potash road. Road is behind my girlfriend at the time and my dad.
Mese Vere is pretty cool with the Indian cliff dwellings in Colorado (if you can hit it). You can explore the cliff dwellings yourself (at least when I was there) and a 20' ladder has nothing on the ladders there, I can assure you.
I know Steph knows this, but you're a great father for your attitude.
Last edited:
caver
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I'll be repeating some of what others have said.
Arches National Park is a long haul from Salida.
If you do go I'll throw some ideas out.
Salida: I spent a week there during a National Speleological Society convention. Think 1000+ cave explorers descending upon Salida for a week.
It gets cold at night at 7000' so bring a jacket. We had a large area to camp just outside town on the Arkansas and I woke up with frost on my truck every morning. Once the sun comes over the mountain you will find shorts and t-shirt just fine. The city has a hot spring pool but I never did find time to check it out.
St Elmo is a ghost town that you could drive the family sedan up to. You can continue on but i would recommend 4x4 as you will eventually need it. There is an old building everyone photographs near the Mary Murphy mine. It look like it is about to fall over. The road past this is actually the old narrow gage road bed. Tincup is another occupied ghost town.
there are two old railroad tunnel portals up in this area but they are blocked off. Search Alpine Tunnel.
Drive to Marble and ask about the old Marble quarry and the old mill. Very photogenic. Try Crystal Mill for your search. You can drive up to Crusty Butte and on over the pass. It's gravel but I've seen tour buses on it.
Pikes Peak Cog Railroad: I enjoyed this but it is not cheap and you want reservations. I walked up in the morning right before they left and snagged one of about four seats that were empty. Plan a good part of the day for this. Cave of the Winds is nearby if you like show caves.
Some people like Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.
Florissant Fossil Beds is not too far away. Giant fossilized tree stumps.
Go to Ouray and rent ATV's/Jeep and do the Alpine Loop.
Take a tour over Black Bear Pass,,,,,not for the faint at heart. I've not done the tour but have ridden it twice on a dual sport motorcycle
Royal Gorge=Tourist trap. Worth a vist though.
Rafting the Arkansas through that very canyon was a blast.
I may add some more later
.
Arches National Park is a long haul from Salida.
If you do go I'll throw some ideas out.
Salida: I spent a week there during a National Speleological Society convention. Think 1000+ cave explorers descending upon Salida for a week.
It gets cold at night at 7000' so bring a jacket. We had a large area to camp just outside town on the Arkansas and I woke up with frost on my truck every morning. Once the sun comes over the mountain you will find shorts and t-shirt just fine. The city has a hot spring pool but I never did find time to check it out.
St Elmo is a ghost town that you could drive the family sedan up to. You can continue on but i would recommend 4x4 as you will eventually need it. There is an old building everyone photographs near the Mary Murphy mine. It look like it is about to fall over. The road past this is actually the old narrow gage road bed. Tincup is another occupied ghost town.
there are two old railroad tunnel portals up in this area but they are blocked off. Search Alpine Tunnel.
Drive to Marble and ask about the old Marble quarry and the old mill. Very photogenic. Try Crystal Mill for your search. You can drive up to Crusty Butte and on over the pass. It's gravel but I've seen tour buses on it.
Pikes Peak Cog Railroad: I enjoyed this but it is not cheap and you want reservations. I walked up in the morning right before they left and snagged one of about four seats that were empty. Plan a good part of the day for this. Cave of the Winds is nearby if you like show caves.
Some people like Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.
Florissant Fossil Beds is not too far away. Giant fossilized tree stumps.
Go to Ouray and rent ATV's/Jeep and do the Alpine Loop.
Take a tour over Black Bear Pass,,,,,not for the faint at heart. I've not done the tour but have ridden it twice on a dual sport motorcycle
Royal Gorge=Tourist trap. Worth a vist though.
Rafting the Arkansas through that very canyon was a blast.
I may add some more later
.
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Thank you everyone for all the ideas. We've been searching online for your suggestions and looking at pictures. Lost of pictures!!! LOL
We're really hoping to score a bunch of borchures when we get to the hotel, and we're also bringing Steph's laptop with our cellular wireless card. This will be the first road trip with that, so we're kind of curious how it works, and if we can surf the net while driving.
Those brochures, along with everyones suggestions will really give us allot of choices for things to see and do.
Again, Thank you.
Eddie
We're really hoping to score a bunch of borchures when we get to the hotel, and we're also bringing Steph's laptop with our cellular wireless card. This will be the first road trip with that, so we're kind of curious how it works, and if we can surf the net while driving.
Those brochures, along with everyones suggestions will really give us allot of choices for things to see and do.
Again, Thank you.
Eddie
Tdog
Platinum Member
Eddie,
I'll echo what Sigarms said about Mesa Verde - - it's worth the ride.
If you like canyons, check out the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - - it's an extremely steep gash in the ground. Spectacular.
Enjoy.
Jack
I'll echo what Sigarms said about Mesa Verde - - it's worth the ride.
If you like canyons, check out the Black Canyon of the Gunnison - - it's an extremely steep gash in the ground. Spectacular.
Enjoy.
Jack
jayste
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One last thing....maybe not. You might find that staying in Canyon, Tx. instead of Amarillo might be better if your reservations aren't too binding. Canyon has several chain motels and they're all reletively new. It would save you a few miles and would probably be on your way so you wouldn't have to back-track to the Palo Duro. Just a thought.
Jay
Bird
Rest in Peace
Yeah, but if you're in Amarillo, you have to visit The Big Texan Steakhouse. When we were there, we had our youngest daughter and 5 year old grandson with us. The appetizer menu includes Mountain Oysters and says "If you think it's seafood, go with the shrimp." Of course, our daughter and grandson didn't know what that was, but they learned that it's very good.
Of course, our daughter and grandson didn't know what that was, but they learned that it's very good.Alan L.
Elite Member
As many times as I've been going through Amarillo on the way to the mountains, I have never stopped at that steakhouse. Somehow a 72-ounce steak seems a little heavy in the middle of a 10.5 hour drive.
Bird
Rest in Peace
Yep, Alan, I didn't attempt that big steak myself, but we did all have a very good meal there. But I, too, would not have wanted that big steak dinner in the middle of a trip. We were staying in Amarillo at the time in the motorhome while I was doing a gas leakage survey there, and our daughter and grandson came up to visit a couple of days.
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
We've been re-reading everyones suggestions and I wanted to reply to each of you since you were so kind in your replies.
westbrooklawn
Thank you. I grew up going on a family vacation every year. While there was a period of rebelion where I didn't want to do anything with my parents, we still had fun and I was able to see allot of the country. My parents bought their first RV in 1971. It was 24ft long and the five of us would live in it for up to 3 weeks on the longer trips.
Every year, we look into place to go that will be fun for the kids and expose them to something new. Last year it was California, the year before that we went to San Antonio and Austin. Florida is high on our list for next year, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
OlderToday
Great screen name!!! Thanks for the link to Marshall Pass. I never heard of it, but we've added it to our list of things we're going to try and do.
Alan
Great post!!! Thank you for all the suggestions. The ghost towns and gold mines sound like allot of fun. We're going to try to see a few of them and apprecieat the personal recomendation.
cowboy357
Thank you for the suggestions and links. We didn't know about the cliff dwellings and looked at them online. Are they real? On a few sites, we read that they were brough there and assembled to look real, but that the people who build them never lived in that area. But we also read that they have been there for hundreds of years, so it's got us confused. We'll probably check them out for the pictures and because we'll be so close to them, and find out the truth about them when we get there.
Bird,
I never heard of Palo Duro Canyon until last week. Funny the things that you don't know about if nobody mentions them or you don't see it on TV. Steph was talking to a patient about our upcoming trip and was told to be sure to see the canyon and that there was a show in the evening that's very good and worth seeing. She knew about the canyon, but never brought it up. We've driven through Amarillo a few times together too. She told me that she'd like to see it if we were close to it, and then we found out about the show and the steak dinner. The website for Palo Duro Canyon has a video of the show, the dinner and the canyon. It's pretty good, so $180 later, we have tickets to the show in the center section, about a dozen seats back. We also have tickets for the steak dinner that looked like fun. You should see the grill that they are using on the video!!!! I figured that if nothing else, I might get some ideas to steal from what they are doing that I might use for the RV Park. LOL
Since the show is in the evening with fireworks and all that, we'll be staying the night close by. I priced hotels and found the best price between Canyon and Amarillo. It was a $20 difference for Holiday Inn Express, which is pretty much the only place we stay at when traveling.
Huckridge,
Thank you for the link. It looks like a fun place. If we're in the area, we'll go there for dinner and watch the show.
Ladia
We hope to visit those places. I've always heard of Black Canyon and would like to see it. As for the white water rafting, it's not gonna happen. Steph is pretty open to most things, but that just terrifies her. And the thought of her kids out on a raft in a river is just too terrifying for her to deal with. It's one of those things that goes beyond reason or discussion.
To really show how crazy she is, she's all for letting them go on zip lines and repell off of 40 ft towers. There is a zip line place there that we might go to, but rafting is totolly out of the question.
Wombat125
Steph really wants to do the cog railroad up Pikes Peak. It sounds like fun to me too, so that's at the very top of our list of things to do.
We're not sure about driving to Utah or not. We'd like to see it again and bring the kids, but don't want to commit to it just yet. We're saving that for the end of the week and if we've been able to see the other things on our list. With a growing list, it's questionable what we'll see and what we'll have to put off until next time.
Thanks for the tip on the altitude. We hadn't considered that. What's funny is that when Steph and I went to Yellowstone for our Honeymoon, we didn't bring any jackets or warm clothing. We don't need that stuff in Texas for most of the year, and we didn't need it in Boulder CO, where we got married, but we were suffering in Yellowstone and had to go to the store to get some sweathshirts right away!!!! Your tip reminded us to bring sunscreen and jackets!!!!!
jayste,
Thanks for the pictures!!! We've been loooking at them online and are amazed at how big the canyon is. The colors are also very impressive.
We'll be driving through Ratan and will look up the volcano. Then we're going up 25 until we need to turn for Salida. We've been on the road before and really enjoyed it.
Sigarms
I agree that one arch is about the same as the next, but the kids haven't seen them and there is a canyon that Steph has seen pictures of that she wants to go to. It's very narrow with steep walls, and has a ton of color changes on those walls. We've been looking at pictures online, but haven't found it yet. To be honest, we're mostly looking in Colorado, so it's not a priority, just a bonus if we have to time to head out there.
caver,
Thanks for the advice. We really appreciate it. The ghost towns are high on our list because Steph loves to take pictures of old buildings. The older the better. She has a special thing for old churches and barns, but just about every old building she sees, we have to stop for so she can take pictures of it. I enjoy seeing them too, so it's fun for both of us. Hopefully the kids will like it, but if not, that's just part of being a kid and suffering through their parents!!! hahaha
Tdog,
The thing that I know about Black Canyon is it's where the former world record elk was killed many decades ago. The guy shot it, packed out the meat and told eveyone about how big the bull was. Nobody believed him, so he went back and brought out the antlers, which eventually was measured to be the world record. This was when the elk populations were way down and in many states, non existant. It's always sounded like a magical place to me, the place where elk survived while most of them died during the gold rush years and year round killing of them. But not just survived, this elk grew to such an extreme that for many, many decades, it was the largest elk ever killed!!! That's just amazing to me and why I want to see Black Canyon for myself.
Eddie
westbrooklawn
Thank you. I grew up going on a family vacation every year. While there was a period of rebelion where I didn't want to do anything with my parents, we still had fun and I was able to see allot of the country. My parents bought their first RV in 1971. It was 24ft long and the five of us would live in it for up to 3 weeks on the longer trips.
Every year, we look into place to go that will be fun for the kids and expose them to something new. Last year it was California, the year before that we went to San Antonio and Austin. Florida is high on our list for next year, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
OlderToday
Great screen name!!! Thanks for the link to Marshall Pass. I never heard of it, but we've added it to our list of things we're going to try and do.
Alan
Great post!!! Thank you for all the suggestions. The ghost towns and gold mines sound like allot of fun. We're going to try to see a few of them and apprecieat the personal recomendation.
cowboy357
Thank you for the suggestions and links. We didn't know about the cliff dwellings and looked at them online. Are they real? On a few sites, we read that they were brough there and assembled to look real, but that the people who build them never lived in that area. But we also read that they have been there for hundreds of years, so it's got us confused. We'll probably check them out for the pictures and because we'll be so close to them, and find out the truth about them when we get there.
Bird,
I never heard of Palo Duro Canyon until last week. Funny the things that you don't know about if nobody mentions them or you don't see it on TV. Steph was talking to a patient about our upcoming trip and was told to be sure to see the canyon and that there was a show in the evening that's very good and worth seeing. She knew about the canyon, but never brought it up. We've driven through Amarillo a few times together too. She told me that she'd like to see it if we were close to it, and then we found out about the show and the steak dinner. The website for Palo Duro Canyon has a video of the show, the dinner and the canyon. It's pretty good, so $180 later, we have tickets to the show in the center section, about a dozen seats back. We also have tickets for the steak dinner that looked like fun. You should see the grill that they are using on the video!!!! I figured that if nothing else, I might get some ideas to steal from what they are doing that I might use for the RV Park. LOL
Since the show is in the evening with fireworks and all that, we'll be staying the night close by. I priced hotels and found the best price between Canyon and Amarillo. It was a $20 difference for Holiday Inn Express, which is pretty much the only place we stay at when traveling.
Huckridge,
Thank you for the link. It looks like a fun place. If we're in the area, we'll go there for dinner and watch the show.
Ladia
We hope to visit those places. I've always heard of Black Canyon and would like to see it. As for the white water rafting, it's not gonna happen. Steph is pretty open to most things, but that just terrifies her. And the thought of her kids out on a raft in a river is just too terrifying for her to deal with. It's one of those things that goes beyond reason or discussion.
To really show how crazy she is, she's all for letting them go on zip lines and repell off of 40 ft towers. There is a zip line place there that we might go to, but rafting is totolly out of the question.
Wombat125
Steph really wants to do the cog railroad up Pikes Peak. It sounds like fun to me too, so that's at the very top of our list of things to do.
We're not sure about driving to Utah or not. We'd like to see it again and bring the kids, but don't want to commit to it just yet. We're saving that for the end of the week and if we've been able to see the other things on our list. With a growing list, it's questionable what we'll see and what we'll have to put off until next time.
Thanks for the tip on the altitude. We hadn't considered that. What's funny is that when Steph and I went to Yellowstone for our Honeymoon, we didn't bring any jackets or warm clothing. We don't need that stuff in Texas for most of the year, and we didn't need it in Boulder CO, where we got married, but we were suffering in Yellowstone and had to go to the store to get some sweathshirts right away!!!! Your tip reminded us to bring sunscreen and jackets!!!!!
jayste,
Thanks for the pictures!!! We've been loooking at them online and are amazed at how big the canyon is. The colors are also very impressive.
We'll be driving through Ratan and will look up the volcano. Then we're going up 25 until we need to turn for Salida. We've been on the road before and really enjoyed it.
Sigarms
I agree that one arch is about the same as the next, but the kids haven't seen them and there is a canyon that Steph has seen pictures of that she wants to go to. It's very narrow with steep walls, and has a ton of color changes on those walls. We've been looking at pictures online, but haven't found it yet. To be honest, we're mostly looking in Colorado, so it's not a priority, just a bonus if we have to time to head out there.
caver,
Thanks for the advice. We really appreciate it. The ghost towns are high on our list because Steph loves to take pictures of old buildings. The older the better. She has a special thing for old churches and barns, but just about every old building she sees, we have to stop for so she can take pictures of it. I enjoy seeing them too, so it's fun for both of us. Hopefully the kids will like it, but if not, that's just part of being a kid and suffering through their parents!!! hahaha
Tdog,
The thing that I know about Black Canyon is it's where the former world record elk was killed many decades ago. The guy shot it, packed out the meat and told eveyone about how big the bull was. Nobody believed him, so he went back and brought out the antlers, which eventually was measured to be the world record. This was when the elk populations were way down and in many states, non existant. It's always sounded like a magical place to me, the place where elk survived while most of them died during the gold rush years and year round killing of them. But not just survived, this elk grew to such an extreme that for many, many decades, it was the largest elk ever killed!!! That's just amazing to me and why I want to see Black Canyon for myself.
Eddie
